860C.48/755
Memorandum of Conversation, by the Acting Secretary of State
The British Minister, Sir Ronald Campbell, called to see me this morning at his request.
Sir Ronald said that the President had yesterday spoken with Mm, after my conversation on the telephone with the President, concerning the request of the British Government37 that this Government permit the entrance into the United States of some 30,000 Polish refugees from, the Soviet Union, these refugees being the immediate families of the Polish divisions which were now moving from the Soviet Union to North Africa.
I told Sir Ronald that the President had agreed with me that it was impossible for this suggestion to be complied with by this Government inasmuch as on account of the tremendous distance involved it would be physically impossible to transport so large a number of persons from Persia to the United States in the ships available, and, in the second place, such a step on our part would involve an amendment of our present immigration laws, which was highly undesirable at this time. I said the best thing we could consequently do would be to explore the possibility of providing for the settlement of these refugees in temporary camps at some place in Persia through an arrangement whereby the Persian Government would not have to undertake any expense and whereby food supplies required by these people would be sent from the United States with the assistance of and under the auspices of the American Red Cross. I said that as soon as possible [Page 168] the Department would discuss the matter more fully with the British Embassy in order to see what might be done.
- Mr. F. R. Hoyer Millar, Counselor of the British Embassy, on August 1, 1942, left at the Department an aide-mémoire, requesting that the United States Government give immediate consideration to the question of accepting 30,000 Polish civilian refugees about to depart from the Soviet Union, and mentioned that Sir Ronald Campbell expected to call upon Mr. Welles to discuss the subject.↩